Nabb1:Maybe the chicken you are buying, but the free-range growth hormone-free stuff is still expensive as all get out.

Free-range grass-fed and finished beef carries a similar premium, so that's a wash. Fortunately, I have a hard time feeling any empathy for chickens, so I don't feel much pain after demolishing a small flock just because I wanted to eat one specific part of them many times.

When I was in art school I knew a grad student who did plastic sculptures. One day he had a great idea: he went to the butcher shop, bought a whole chicken, head, legs, feathers and all, dipped it repeatedly in polymer resin until he built up a nice thick coat of plastic, then hung it on the wall of his studio. Great sculpture, huh? Luckily he was not in his studio the day the chicken exploded (from the built-up decomposition gases), leaving a thin layer of molten chicken on every exposed surface in his studio. He walked in (as he told the story), took one look, walked out and locked the door behind him, abandoning everything he owned.

Maybe the chicken you are buying, but the free-range growth hormone-free stuff is still expensive as all get out.

^ This. I pay about $6 a pound for "real" chickens, and that's directly from the farm. And that's for the whole chicken.

I'm doing this next year. I have a few hens for eggs. They are great. But no way I can butcher chickens. Did that as a little kid. It's the worst butchering process ever. But I found a farmer on Craig's list near here who will take your order in spring. He then raises as many chicks as he has pre-ordered. They are raised free range. Then he calls you when he's going to butcher and you go pick them up on his farm. I will probably order 20 or so.

brandent:I'm doing this next year. I have a few hens for eggs. They are great. But no way I can butcher chickens. Did that as a little kid. It's the worst butchering process ever. But I found a farmer on Craig's list near here who will take your order in spring. He then raises as many chicks as he has pre-ordered. They are raised free range. Then he calls you when he's going to butcher and you go pick them up on his farm. I will probably order 20 or so.

This, I could do. I just have a hard time believing grocery store label "free range" "organic" chicken actually means diddly-squat or actually makes a difference in quality.

These days I only buy the fancy more expensive chicken. Between the saline juice injected chicken that just adds water weight, to just plain funny taste, I can't do the cheap stuff anymore.

That said: washing them in a chlorine solution doesn't sound awful to me. Obviously chlorine is a pretty farking safe chemical when used properly. Thank chlorine for most of your pathogen free tap water. Swimming pools. Etc. It's so ubiquitous that I doubt a single person in North America hasn't benefited from it. Or drank it. So washing some chickens in it and then washing em off with water doesn't exactly seem bad.

Of course, then you get ambitious grocery stores that abuse it. Anyone remember the Food Lion scandal in Florida in the 90s? Washing spoiled meat with bleach and then making it into "seasoned" things. To this day, in a different state, that still keeps me from buying anything "seasoned" from the meat department in the grocery store, heh.

incendi:brandent: I'm doing this next year. I have a few hens for eggs. They are great. But no way I can butcher chickens. Did that as a little kid. It's the worst butchering process ever. But I found a farmer on Craig's list near here who will take your order in spring. He then raises as many chicks as he has pre-ordered. They are raised free range. Then he calls you when he's going to butcher and you go pick them up on his farm. I will probably order 20 or so.

This, I could do. I just have a hard time believing grocery store label "free range" "organic" chicken actually means diddly-squat or actually makes a difference in quality.

Read 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' by Michael Pollan.

Free range chickens live in a massive, disgusting, overcrowded shed but have a couple of small exits that lead to very small fenced-in areas they mostly don't use.

Maybe the chicken you are buying, but the free-range growth hormone-free stuff is still expensive as all get out.

^ This. I pay about $6 a pound for "real" chickens, and that's directly from the farm. And that's for the whole chicken.

Just curious, is there a significant difference in taste?

Having just made the transition to growth hormone free, free range chickens in the last 6 months... yes. Yes there is. The skin of the bird is a better texture and more substantial. Fat is in the right places. The texture of the meat is better - more firm, and the skin is better attached. In general, they've been cleaned better, defeathered more completely. The are significantly better quality wise. The taste... is amazing. In comparison to the bulk brands out there think 3x the flavor. Whatever the factory style growth process is, it eliminates all flavor from the chickens that end up in the stores. I will never be going back. I can't pinpoint which of the many differences in handling and feeding drives the results but the differences in outcomes are huge. You could say they actually taste like chicken.

"In a move viewed as protectionist, Russia took the U.S. chicken industry to task in 2010 for rinsing its product in chlorine, a practice long banned in the European Union but common in the U.S. American producers agreed to stop the process for Russian-bound chicken. "

No a problem. They already had the ammonia gas to use instead, in-house to use on the pink slime.

neongoats:These days I only buy the fancy more expensive chicken. Between the saline juice injected chicken that just adds water weight, to just plain funny taste, I can't do the cheap stuff anymore.

That said: washing them in a chlorine solution doesn't sound awful to me. Obviously chlorine is a pretty farking safe chemical when used properly. Thank chlorine for most of your pathogen free tap water. Swimming pools. Etc. It's so ubiquitous that I doubt a single person in North America hasn't benefited from it. Or drank it. So washing some chickens in it and then washing em off with water doesn't exactly seem bad.

Of course, then you get ambitious grocery stores that abuse it. Anyone remember the Food Lion scandal in Florida in the 90s? Washing spoiled meat with bleach and then making it into "seasoned" things. To this day, in a different state, that still keeps me from buying anything "seasoned" from the meat department in the grocery store, heh.

Yeah. I always just assume that the seasoned meat is the stuff that's past expiration or right on the edge because of that.

There's lots about conservative derp in America that confuses me and makes me angry but nothing compared to the total brain dead self-defeating retardation that causes people to vote or advocate for people who would allow this to happen to our food supply. There's just no excuse for that level of ignorance. Mostly their stupid shiat just harms them, but when it comes to food and water safety they're messing with my family. Gah.

incendi:brandent: I'm doing this next year. I have a few hens for eggs. They are great. But no way I can butcher chickens. Did that as a little kid. It's the worst butchering process ever. But I found a farmer on Craig's list near here who will take your order in spring. He then raises as many chicks as he has pre-ordered. They are raised free range. Then he calls you when he's going to butcher and you go pick them up on his farm. I will probably order 20 or so.

This, I could do. I just have a hard time believing grocery store label "free range" "organic" chicken actually means diddly-squat or actually makes a difference in quality.

I've heard 'cage free' eggs etc are even worse than the caged ones because they give them just enough space to fight basically.

I drive past a huge Tyson chicken plant and several large chicken farms to and from work, so I'm getting a kick.

/You don't know what "bad" smells like until driving by the chicken plant or stuvk behind a chicken truck on a humid 100 degree South Georgia summer afternoon.//No, I don't eat chicken anymore since I started this new commute.///Unless it's from my sister, who raises them in her backyard.

togaman2k:I drive past a huge Tyson chicken plant and several large chicken farms to and from work, so I'm getting a kick.

/You don't know what "bad" smells like until driving by the chicken plant or stuvk behind a chicken truck on a humid 100 degree South Georgia summer afternoon.//No, I don't eat chicken anymore since I started this new commute.///Unless it's from my sister, who raises them in her backyard.